Saturday, July 3, 2010

I just want to express a big disappointment. During the past year or more, Groupon.com became not only a hot new company, a trend and a great option for buyers in the USA and afuture good option in other countries, including some in Latin America.

There are now hundreds of copycats and vertical solutions on different industries.I wont discuss the GUI or business model, but the deals. In March 13th, 2010 I wentto Groupon interested on a sailing deal.

It was to me a great deal, saving me more than 50%, from $180 to $79 USD...

Wel, I went this morning to the vendor's site, in order to find out more about how to register or book my lesson and what did I find?

The regular cost is just $1.00 (one dollar) more than the "deal" that I bought... I really hope I'm wrong, but it doesn't look like I am... how many deals are not really "hot deals"? how many buyers are just paying a little bit less? I do not have a big issue for 79 USD, but why this is happening? supposed to be a mega deal and now it seams it was just advertising. I am sure Groupon can no control their advertisers price list, but how to expand the business without loosing control on this matters, that actually are the real utility of the site?

Now I will be buying "deals" only of things that I know the price before I see the deal, in where I am aware of the price range before... I do not want this to happen again and maybe I wont be using Groupon.com again...

The web is about utility, usability and likeness... I always repete this, and what supposed to be a great utility... was just an illusion. this hurts the web, the trust on e-commerce and the attractiveness of new trendy sites